


Confession

by FloraOne



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, I'm jumping a bit through seasons in this one you'll see, Mamoru and words aren't friends, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Chiba Mamoru, Pre-Canon, R, Super S - Freeform, birthday fic, episode e132, makaiju arc, yes I'm going at the Saori episode AGAIN but listen UGJ wanted it!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:27:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23139208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloraOne/pseuds/FloraOne
Summary: (Some of) the many times Mamoru got confessed to. A 5+1 style birthday fic for Uglygreenjacket.
Relationships: Chiba Mamoru/Tsukino Usagi
Comments: 42
Kudos: 182





	Confession

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UglyGreenJacket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyGreenJacket/gifts).



> So, this is Uglygreenjacket's birthday fic, and you all get to read her giftl! She wanted a certain scene in Super S extended, she wanted someone to actually confess and to see what happened, and you'll see who she meant! Love, it's been THREE YEARS now that we've been friends, and I cherish you, and this is for you, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I would have loved to see you next week, and I'm heartbroken, but maybe to soften the blow that it doesn't happen after all, I hope you get some joy out of this!
> 
> For everyone else reading this, I know it's a panic-y time, and maybe this can take your mind off of things for a little bit!
> 
> Also, strict Anime!canon here :)

* * *

Confession

A Birthday Fic for Uglygreenjacket

* * *

The first time Mamoru got confessed to, he hadn't understood what was happening.

As the only orphan kid in that particular school, he was used to people looking at him weirdly. Used to people talking about him behind his back. He only had a handful of classmates that treated him like equals, and he treasured their acquaintance, even when they never were particularly close to him. He was the boy who was completely alone after all, didn't quite know how to engage, and sometimes other students approached him with weird questions about what it meant to live 'like that', and he wasn't all too good at answering these in ways they seemed to expect.

So, he'd forced a polite smile and expected anything but this girl mumbling how she'd liked him for a while, how he was the coolest boy she'd ever seen, how she would like nothing more than to be his girlfriend, please.

It was the weirdest situation for him. He didn't want to hurt her. He wanted to encourage her initiative, her bravery. He felt how nervous she was so strongly that it caused his own fingers to tremble right along with hers, and his cheeks to heat with the flaming of her face, and he wanted to tell her it was ok, but at age 15 no more than later in his life, Mamoru and words weren't friends.

In his panic, he was halfway to interrupting her stammered confession. To invite her to a date, and figure out along the way what one did on dates, since he'd never actually been on one. Because, really, what did he have to lose to indulge her in her genuine feelings?

It had, after all, visibly taken a lot out of her to stand here, wringing her hands into her school uniform and speaking to his feet. One date wouldn't hurt, right?

Then he remembered he didn't even know her name, and that this probably wasn't the best idea.

He did his best and still reacted very poorly.

"Excuse me, _who_ are you?" he'd interrupted her stammered speech, and a few of his classmates who had previously been pretending to be minding their own business in the hallway had turned around to him and gaped.

She'd fled with watering eyes before he could apologize, and he'd felt embarrassed about it for the rest of middle school whenever he saw her in the hallways. He'd never spoken to her again.

(But her name was Mayu, he'd later learned overhearing a gossiping group of boys in his class that had been nowhere near them when it happened, relaying to each other how cruel he'd been, how much she'd cried afterwards, and he cringed whenever he thought about it, even years later.

He hadn't meant to be cruel. Not at all. But for all the weird understanding and skill of detection he felt he possessed around emotions, he could never seem to bring his words across the way he meant them to.)

It was something that hadn't let him go, a special type of guilt he carried with him and that he would remember at odd times. He really had not intended to cause anyone pain, and yet accidentally, he had.

He didn't even know what he had done to cause these feelings in her in the first place. He didn't remember ever having met her before. She wasn't in his class. He was polite to everyone but not close to anyone, kept to himself. He had no clue how she had known him. He was quiet, studious, pretty 'boring' (he'd overheard).

He'd kept a bit more to himself around girls after that incident than he already had. He didn't even consciously mean to, was polite as ever, but didn't small talk all that much. It was something that just happened, a natural shell he retreated to.

He didn't want anyone to get hurt because of him again, at least until he figured out what it was about him that had caused it.

Lying alone in the bathtub during long, lonely nights whenever he'd finished his homework, he'd prepared the perfect (late) comeback in his mind over and over henceforth.

That he was flattered, that he thought it was great when girls made the first move to approach someone, especially because it seemed to him that some of the nicer boys were often terrified to come across as too forward, and she should be incredibly proud of herself because it took bravery regardless. That she didn't have to be afraid to express her feelings because no one worth her time would ever judge her for it or find it unwelcome, but that he'd like to get to know her first. He was sorry, but he wasn't very good at conversing with people in general, he was a bit of a loner, it didn't reflect on her that he'd never taken note of her, but maybe they could change that?

It was, after all, not as if he didn't yearn to be a bit more connected to other people. He didn't _choose_ to be so alone.

And so, the next time it happened, he was prepared.

More or less.

It still came as an utter surprise, when, two and a half years, half a puberty and a lot more confidence later, with a different voice, different body, different school, it happened to him again. Especially because this time it was one of the boys in the year below him who held out a letter to him with a flushed face and lowered eyes in the nearly empty school yard after last period.

But this time, he'd understood what was happening right away. Didn't mean though that it was any easier than the last occurance.

Even when, at first, he thought it might be. This was different, he'd thought, right? This time he had an objective reason to decline.

Of course, his speech still completely applied. It was brave, he was flattered, he should not be afraid to try this in the future, maybe they could get to know each other.

And he meant to say that. Meant to follow up with exactly that, after he explained, first, that, "Um… I'm not gay," with what he hoped was more apology in his eyes than shock - and with flushed cheeks and his hands trembling along with the boy's shaking ones in compassion.

Mamoru had not even closed his mouth yet, fully intent to give off his prepared speech in the next breath, when he realised his mistake.

A few boys from his class had heard. Mamoru had spoken too loud. There had been a reason why the boy had done it so quietly, after school, when most students were already gone, and without words.

The group of (small-minded, _cruel_!) boys in front of them whirled around and stared. Started pointing. Called it across the schoolyard as the new exciting news. Have you heard, Sato-san is gay. And then they started laughing. Applauding in mockery. Hooting at both the boy and him, because teenage boys could be so impossibly toxic especially when put together.

He had just accidentally outed the poor, brave, teenage boy to effectively all of Azabu. To an all-boys school.

Mamoru's horrified apology died in his throat when the boy's eyes filled with terror and he tried, futile, to deny it all.

Afterwards, even when it had all calmed down and the headmaster had even held a chiding, disappointed speech about tolerance and acceptance in front of the whole school (that had been meant well but still put Sato-san so uncomfortably in the spotlight), and Mamoru had defended him at every point he could, the damage was still done. He had outed someone against their will in the middle of their puberty, and he would never be able to take that back.

It was another notch in the guilt repertoire he carried with him. And so, love confessions to him, he decided, were nothing he would ever particularly enjoy. He couldn't imagine he ever would. Why would people do this to him? Why would people do this to anyone?

Why would anyone ever bring anyone into the position of having to break their heart? Why would anyone ever put that sort of power in his hands? Put their heart into his unwilling care only to hate him when he couldn't handle it? Force him into the role of the bad guy, the no-sayer, the heartbreaker? Why did people keep doing this to him? What did they expect? They didn't even know him, gave him no chance to get to know them.

The third time, as far as he _remembered_ , at least, it was Natsumi.

This time, he swore to himself, he wouldn't break anyone's heart. He'd get it right this time.

Even though Natsumi hadn't made it particularly easy for him. Had followed him all the way to his part-time job when he hadn't even known her name yet, had only seen her once before, minutes earlier.

He'd started when she appeared in front of him, momentarily not being able to place her.

"You'll be my boyfriend," she said like it was a demand, fist stemmed against her red mini skirt.

It was, he'll give her that, the most gutsy confession he'd gotten thus far. So much it threw him (and his speech right out the window.)

"...What?"

"You're my dream guy," she went on, unperturbed, and stepped up towards him. "I'll make you mine."

He'd raised both eyebrows, stood his ground even when he felt like taking a step back.

"I don't think that's quite how it works," he'd said.

But then her smile had turned brilliant, disarming, and his tension fell.

"You'll see!" she'd beamed, and turned around, sparing him, for once, the words.

He'd tried being her friend, then. Tried to not break her heart. He could _feel_ she was as lonely as he was. He didn't want to be in the shoes to break her heart, and so he'd tried, however he could. Tried to be nice.

It hadn't worked, in the end. Sent the wrong message, because he sucked at this, no matter how he went at it. And because the heartbreak was still there, and he had no clue, Natsumi Ginga the space alien had wanted to kill Usagi just because Natsumi wanted him for herself— Talk about failure.

But before he knew about any of that, the fourth time had already sprung on him. Only a couple days after Natsumi's initial confession. And he guessed, in hindsight, it was the worst.

Because the fourth time someone confessed to him in this life, it was the love of his life. Of all his lives. Except he didn't remember her, didn't realise the significance of the hand-drawn pictures of a star-crossed prince and princess on the moon who loved each other, or of her serious, sad eyes and the determined set of her jaw. And yet, he'd known what was coming. Had never dreaded anything more.

Because Usagi, he knew. Not much, mind you, at all. She was Odango Atama, and her smile was precious, and she couldn't do this to him.

It wasn't that he hadn't seen it coming, no, he had, very much. Usagi, little more than an undoubtedly and confusingly adorable but overwhelming stranger in the streets of Juuban to him at this point and someone who he took an altogether curious delight in teasing, had been coming on to him for days now, stronger than any of the girls who came before her, Natsumi included. Yet somehow, he could handle her less than he had been able to handle any and all of the times it had happened to him before.

He'd simply walked off. Turned around and was gone, not a single attempt to let his speech pass his tongue because it had seemed more flawed and faulty than it ever had before, pounding heart and frazzled nerves, and left her standing there with her confession fresh on her lips.

It was only a couple months and two sets of memories pressing into his brain with a ferocity that changed him from one blink of an eye to the next, that he came to regret his reaction to Usagi's confession most of all. The regret pressing in on him even harder than he'd ever thought possible just a few short days after _that_ \- in miserable, bitter distress, when instead, his lips had forced a lie to break her heart and rip his own from his chest in the process right along.

It had worked out, of course, in the end. He was lucky like that.

And so, a hundred kisses in apology and too many battles risking _Usagi's life_ later, reminding him what he could never lose, he'd almost forgotten that getting confessed to was even a threat in his life. He was, after all, the epitome of _taken_. It should have been obvious. Or so he thought.

The fifth time was Saori.

"What if I bought it for _you_ …?" she'd mumbled with her back turned to him, hunched, clutching the box tightly holding the gift he'd helped her pick out just this afternoon.

He froze. His body suddenly felt as rigid as the stone steps he was sitting on, all the easy laughter from before immediately evaporating.

"The cravat," she said towards the empty park and not to him. "What if I bought it for you?"

He… really hadn't seen that coming. Not in a million years. He barely _remembered_ his prepared speech—

Wasn't she… What about _Kobayashi…_?

"...Saori." he swallowed, tense. "You know, I…"

He broke off, tried again. "I'm very… flattered, I…"

But she interrupted him, whirled around with a bright smile but it looked sad, because there it was, already, the heartbreak. That he was forced to put there once again.

Saori wasn't a stranger. Saori was a friend. Never all that close, no, but Saori had been one of his few classmates in middle school that hadn't shunned him because he was the orphan kid and hadn't shot up in height yet. She was the only person from school he still had contact with. He cherished her for that. And he'd have to hurt her.

"Do you remember Mayu? In class 2?" Saori asked in a small voice, and Mamoru's heart jumped, because of course he remembered the first broken heart he'd ever administered, and it kind of twisted the knife deeper.

"I do…"

Her shoulders tensed and she looked down at the box she gripped with both hands, and they tightened so hard it made a sound against the cardboard.

"We both had a crush on you back then. Mayu and I." She glanced back up, ripped a hand from the box and pushed her hair behind one ear. "We used to sit together and imagine how it would be if you fell for one of us. It was a bit weird."

Oh no.

His eyes widened a little, because that was… very long ago, and if she waited for him to say something, there was nothing of his speech left, so only the clicking, buzzing sounds of the cicadas stridulating in the distance met her words.

"Sorry, that sounds creepy," she said with a small flinch when he didn't respond. "I promise we were just two 15 year-olds with a crush. It sounds worse than it was."

"I… didn't know Mayu back then," Mamoru said, rubbing his hands together between his knees.

"But you did know me," she said carefully, and Mamoru nodded.

It was weird to think about. Weird to know in his heart that had it been Saori, his kind classmate, asking him back then for a date, and not a stranger? When he was so lonely and the light in his life still so many years away from hitting him in the head with a test paper? He would have said yes. His strategy to not break her heart would have been to agree, because back then, he didn't think he'd have had anything to lose not to try, not to force it.

Where would he be then, now, if that had happened? Would he not be with Usagi, now, then?

The thought was constricting. Troubling.

"Did you like me?"

Mamoru blinked up at her. "You were one of the only people in school who treated me like a normal kid," he said, carefully. "I liked you, yes. But not in the way that…"

He yanked a hand through his hair, frustrated. "Middle school… has been a few years," was what he settled on instead.

"It has, yes," she nodded, and sat back down on the steps next to him. "Mayu was braver than me, back then."

He knotted his hands together until it hurt.

And then, in his field of vision, the slim box was slowly pushed right into it. Trembling hands dropped it onto his knees. "I was never that brave," Saori said quietly. "But I also never got over my crush."

Saori's voice was shaking. Her cheeks were bright pink, her hands a constant tremor, every nerve-ending in her screamed terror at him. Screamed flight, and yet there she sat, doing this to him.

He inhaled harshly. "That's… very brave of you to say…" he attempted, helpless.

"You asked me if I'd met someone. How the guy is that caught my eye…" Saori tried carefully, and he cringed.

Saori's eyes were filled with all the hope when he looked back from the slim box and at her. Her knuckles were white.

"Well, it's you…"

He ran a hand through his hair again and knew he was making a mess of it. "Saori, you've met Usagi today…"

That seemed to throw her for a loop. She blinked as if in confusion and he frowned right back, just as confused. Because...

"I don't want to hurt you, Saori," he tried again, lowering his chin to peer at her in calculation. Because he really, really didn't.

She licked her lips, and turned to face him on the steps with the most tentative of motions. "Then… don't? Maybe?"

He frowned, pressed his hands together.

He didn't… understand…

"Why are you confessing to me, Saori," he asked, confused, "when you know I have a girlfriend?"

She physically recoiled, brow knitting in that same confusion from before, only harder, and he… what did she…

"I…I didn't think you..." Saori started, and then broke off to start again with a frown. "Excuse me when I say this, but… she's…"

Mamoru's eyebrows flew to his hairline. "What is she?"

Precious. Bubbly. Fearless. Uninhibited. Kind. Way more outgoing than him. Sweeter than him. Sweeter than _anybody_.

"She's…" Saori stammered, looking like she was trying to find her bearing, like she was shocked. "Usagi-chan seemed very young to _seriously_ be your…"

His frown turned into a glare almost involuntarily at what Saori seemed to be implying. "She's only four years younger than me. Three and a half years younger than you."

With a start he realised that his body had tensed up completely. Defensively. _Angry_. What… What did she...

"That's not that uncommon," he tacked on in irritable and altogether unfamiliar defense.

Besides, Usagi was the savior of the world, many times over, and also his lover from a past life, even if…

Either way, none of that mattered. At all.

Hadn't she just said she was 15, too, when she had that crush?

Saori threw him a look as if he was being ridiculous, and it irritated him. A lot.

Did she not think… Did he not act like Usagi was … was… his? Everything?

Was he doing it wrong…?

"You're among the most accomplished students at _Keio_. As a _first-year_..." she said, as if that made any sort of sense.

He gaped. "And…?"

She pinched her shoulders back in a sudden movement, and seemed to study him with a crease on her brow, and he held her inquisitive gaze somewhat forcefully.

Then her features fell in a little 'Oh,' as she seemed to have found what she was looking for.

He… he didn't understand. And he must have clearly looked it and worse. What had she been implying? Did she think they were too different? Did she think he was… what? Taking advantage of Usagi? What was it? Did she think someone who was accomplished at Keio couldn't be with the _purest person in the world?_

_Wait._

Did she think _Usagi_ wasn't… that she wasn't...

He cut the thought off abruptly.

No, he didn't even want to _think_ that. He didn't want to think _she_ would think that. Saori was kind. He didn't _want_ to think less of Saori.

He wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Wanted to be as kind as Usagi would be and not assume the worst.

He sighed just as her face turned a bit ashen.

Carefully, slowly, he handed the box back to her, held it out.

It hovered in the space between them for a moment, and Saori stared at it a little before she eventually reached out for it. Then, however, she held on tightly, as if afraid to drop it.

"Why _now_?" he probed despite himself, because he couldn't help it, because it _ate_ at him and he was _irritated_ and confused and conflicted and…. because he didn't want to ask what he should be asking instead. He didn't want to think less of her.

She got up again on unsteady legs, turned her back to him again and shrugged.

"I…" she started, and her voice was painfully wobbly. Mamoru flinched.

"I… I thought if I didn't try it now, I'd never get a chance again."

He sighed, harder than before, a little grunt.

"Why is confessing important?" he asked, and frowned. He didn't want to be so irritated, but he was.

Saori turned back around, hurt flashing across her face. "Excuse me?"

He shrugged. "Why do people confess?" he asked, almost petulantly. Because he hated it.

She tilted her head at him. Spoke in a way that sounded surprised. "Because when you love someone, you need to say it?"

He pursed his lips. "Isn't that a little selfish?"

She jolted in surprise. "I… no!"

He sighed, glared at his hands, folded them between his knees, before he looked back up. "What if the other person doesn't feel the same way. What if you force them to hurt you? What if it destroys what you could have had instead?"

It took a moment for Saori to react, but her shoulders fell, her lips turned down, and she seemed to understand.

"What if they need to hear the hurt to find closure?" she said sadly.

Mamoru grunted.

"Or," Saori shrugged, pressed the box against her chest. "What if they thought they might have a slim chance to win them over anyway, to make them choose you? Or what if that person did love you back, but you never knew? Or what if they don't but they could really use to hear someone liked them like that? What if it's the last time you could say it before it's too late?"

He frowned.

The box was lowered to the hem of her skirt, now easily clutched with both her hands, her voice composed.

"But I see I misjudged…"

He leveled his eyes back to her, let those speak, and not his mouth, because he sucked at words and he knew it.

He knew, whatever happened here, now, they were no longer friends. Acquaintances, still, surely. Co-eds. But no longer friends. They weren't close enough for this to work any other way. Because she'd overstepped a line, and he'd broken her heart, and broken hearts didn't mend around the people who broke it.

He _really_ wished she hadn't said anything. That she hadn't done this to him.

"So, she really is your girlfriend?" Saori asked with a small, saddened smile, and a hint of apology.

"She very much is, yes," he said with vehemence in it, holding her gaze. "She's the woman I will marry."

Saori's eyes blinked rapidly, and after a bit of shocked silence, her shoulders dropped with a big sigh that looked like defeat. And yet she spoke anyway, and it was completely forced.

"What do you love about her?"

He lowered his gaze, squinted. Because that was just… poking the wound, and yet...

"She's…um," he started, tried to find something gentle to say. "She's sweet," he stammered, "and kind and…"

And then he realised with a horrible start that no, he'd never put it into actual words before. Not once. Certainly not in a way that he could twist it so it wouldn't hurt Saori further, and really not…

He'd never put into words how—

He… he just _hadn't—_

He frowned harder, lost in thought, when it all happened so fast.

One moment he was fumbling for words, the next he was pinned to the stairs by dozens of throwing knives, and Tiger's Eye about to hurt Saori's heart worse than he was doing right now already.

And only a few moments more and Sailor Moon was _suffocating_ in his arms and his ears rung with Saori's words.

Just a few moments. One, two, three.

And he almost lost everything. He almost lost her.

It all flashed, went too fast, rung in his ears, sped his heart up so much it was painful in his chest, running, hammering, beating him up.

One moment Chibi Moon and Sailor Moon were there, standing tall, and Usagi was chastising the enemy in her usual, proud way and he was so flooded with relief that she was here so fast, and the next—

_What if it's the last time you could say it before it's too late?_

His throat felt raw with his screams and he felt the leather rip and his skin flex painfully against the knife as he fought against his own muscles for Usagi's life.

One moment more and he was free, Usagi's body now still above him, and he rammed the knife as deep as he could.

When her eyes fluttered back open, his lungs started working again, and his whole body started trembling, and it was the hardest thing to—

He grabbed at her, hugged her tight, only let her go when Usagi had spoken his name several times, he was so shaken. But he did, eventually. Usagi had... (almost died)... insisted.

* * *

Afterwards, Saori acted differently. Sheepish.

He'd half-heartedly offered to bring her home. Was relieved when she only agreed to be walked to the next metro station. And he did, even when his thoughts were with Usagi, and how Sailor Moon had acted the Impartial Superheroine once Saori had woken up, and he hadn't wanted to let Usagi go.

The walk to the station didn't take three minutes, and once there, Saori bowed in a formal way that felt more than just goodbye for the day, still clutching that box, but she also smiled in a way that was real and not forced and that threw him.

She turned back when she'd already walked a few steps down towards the tunnel.

"Mamoru?"

He turned.

"She's amazing," Saori said.

He blinked in confusion.

"Your girlfriend," Saori said with a small shrug and a smaller smile, but it was more heartfelt than any of the ones today so far. "You should tell her."

He was utterly confused all the way home. Not to mention shaken to the bone, still, and for a while yet.

He shook it off, not because he wanted to, but because his ears were still ringing, and he couldn't hold a thought.

His gut was sinking, coiling, screaming. Replaying both Saori's words and the way Usagi's hands had just… had just _dropped_ when she could no longer breathe and...

Somehow, without much conscious input from him, and faster than he should have been, he was home. Usagi was sitting there, in his apartment, like she said she would. Same outfit she'd worn all day, pink top, navy mini skirt, cropped baby blue hoodie, it was an outfit he knew, one she wore often. Like it was just any other day, like nothing unusual had happened. Like no other woman had questioned whether he actually loved her because it obviously didn't _seem_ like he did, on the very day that Usagi had been willing to _die_ for him. _Again_. It was _upsetting_. _All_ of it. And yet it didn't even faze her. Long legs curled underneath her and so engrossed in her video game on her handheld console, she hadn't heard him enter. Chibiusa, for once, was nowhere to be seen.

And so he startled her, after he stood there and watched her for a few moments, rooted to the spot. Because he'd almost lost her today. Because he'd almost lost her so many times. Because he never _told_ her and she was almost—

It was a while before he spoke.

"I never confessed to you."

She shrieked, jumped, cushions bouncing with her, and she dropped her console in a wide arch with a loud clunking sound against his hardwood floors.

"Mamo-chan!" she admonished, almost like a chide, and reached down to pick the yellow thing back off the floor, inspecting it for serious injury.

"I had three chances and I never did," he went right on.

She finally looked up, and he must have looked awful. Obviously, his shirt was a bit torn, holes in his jeans, his ruined leather jacket stuffed into the park's dumpster long before.

(He'd worn that jacket when they sat for that painting, so long ago now in a time that was erased from existence and for a while, also from his memories. When he still treated Usagi like a nuisance, just like most of the world. He'd never get it back.)

(He'd also worn it that day Natsumi had confessed to him, and Usagi had hung from his arm just before, and he'd been so clueless.)

She dropped the console on the couch without another word.

"You're still wearing your shoes, Mamo-chan…" she said, her voice full of concern.

He looked down. He was, yes.

He kicked them off his feet with a dry throat but left them lying there, and Usagi's hands were fluttering to his arm. The one he'd ripped free, a few shallow cuts shimmering through the ruined fabric. They were already healing, would fade away tomorrow.

She was stroking her fingers along them with a frown as if it had been him today and not her who…

He knelt on the couch, pressed his hands against her cheeks, his fingertips brushing into her hair, against her ears.

Immediately, Usagi's eyes fluttered shut, her neck craning, her lips opening as she waited for him to lean in, but he didn't.

"Endymion could have, but he didn't," he said, his breath hitting her lips harshly, voice pressed out and too angry, too irritated, and her eyes flew back open between his hands, and her fingers wrapped around his wrist.

"Mamo-chan…?" she breathed back at him and he could taste it.

Her concern was visible. He could feel it in the tips of his fingers and his lungs and it should be the other way around.

"We were so busy pretending it was nothing to each other and everyone else, that we could stop at any moment, that this wasn't treason, that by the time we could no longer deny it, I never _said_ that—"

He broke off, frustrated, brushed his thumb along her jaw. Her eyes were wide. Confused.

"And even as Mamoru, I had two chances. Hell, I had three, if I count Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon separately. _Four_ , if I count the— the—" The break-up. He couldn't even say it.

Her other hand wrapped around his other wrist, eyes knotted in concern.

"Mamo-chan, what's wrong?" she hushed against his mouth, wide eyes jumping between both of his, her thumbs pressing into his beating pulse points.

" _Usako_ ," he implored. " I _never_ confessed to you."

He confessed it like he admitted a crime.

He guessed it kind of was.

"You didn't need to," she said, shaking her head. "I know!"

He pressed his thumb lower, against her jugular. It was hammering, too.

"I love you," he whispered against her face, trapped in his hold of it.

How was that the first time he ever actually said it in this life?

Why hadn't he just…

But Usagi just smiled. A brilliant, if small smile and he traced it with his thumbs.

"I _know_ ," she repeated, a bit stronger.

And then she reached up, tugging on him, because she wasn't trapped at all, she was too strong for that, and pressed her lips to his. "I know, ok?" she whispered between kisses, and he guessed he was a bit desperate, clutching a bit too much, hands a bit too wild, and she pressed him back into the couch and enveloped him until the edges of his panic eased.

"I know," she whispered into his soul, until he calmed down.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> So, I hope this can distract you a little. And maybe you want to distract me with a review, too!


End file.
